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IST students to compete in cyber security challenge finals

October 26, 2010

IST students to compete in cyber security challenge finals

Four College of Information Science and Technology (IST) students are heading to the final round of the Polytechnic Institute of New York's Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) Capture the Flag competition to be held in New York City this week.

Students Tim Nary, Brian Reitz, Garrett Miller and Craig Shannon, are representing the college’s Information Assurance (IA) Club, which took part in the preliminary round of the competition Sept. 24-26. The team placed in the top 10 of undergraduate teams in the continental United States. The competition attracted 217 registered teams, representing more than 500 individuals from around the world.

During the competition, participants are given a series of challenges that focus on areas such as application reverse engineering and exploitation, Web application security and exploitation, computer forensics, internet reconnaissance, and cryptography. The IST students drew upon the skills they’ve developed inside the classroom and practiced during club seminars to advance in the competition.

“The competition launched while nearly all members of the [IA Club] executive board were traveling for conferences and interviews, so we conducted the beginnings of the competition from two separate vehicles en route from Harrisburg, Pa. and Baltimore, Md.,” said Miller, a senior and the treasurer of the club.

In its seventh year, CSAW features challenges developed with the help of some of New York City’s best known “white hat hackers,” security professionals hired by institutions to find and correct their cyber security vulnerabilities. Top security professionals also judge all the challenges. Through this competition, students in the IA Club as well as the college gain greater exposure to the cybersecurity realm while industry professionals learn about the club and the students at IST, Miller said.